Plus: protecting online speech from meddling lawmakers, why TV prices are set to soar, and a very bad Sentencing Commission nominee.

"Based on the advice of counsel, I will assert my 5th Amendment rights…" It looks like President Trump may be right about his "fix-it" guy and personal lawyer Michael Cohen. Trump said last week that he was confident Cohen wouldn't "flip" on him (a statement that's implication of guilt either went over Trump's head or level of care). On Wednesday, Cohen invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in a civil lawsuit filed by Stormy Daniels over alleged hush money paid by Cohen to keep quiet about a decade-old tryst with Trump.

"Based on the advice of counsel, I will assert my 5th Amendment rights in connection with all proceedings in this case due to the ongoing criminal investigation by the FBI and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York," declared Cohen.

In addition to Daniels' lawsuit, Cohen now faces a federal investigation. Testifying in the civil suit—in which Daniels seeks to void the contract brokered by Cohen on the grounds that one party (Trump) claims to have no knowledge of it—could come back to bite him (or Trump) in the criminal case.

"Talking, when you're the subject of an investigation, when they are thinking that this contract was a federal crime … is incredibly reckless," lawyer Ken White (better known around these parts as Popehat) told NPR. "The only sensible thing to do is shut up and not make it worse."

That's not been Trump's opinion on pleading the Fifth, at least not in the past. "The mob takes the Fifth," Trump said at one 2016 campaign rally. "If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?"

Here was Daniels' lawyer's response:

This is a stunning development. Never before in our nation's history has the attorney for the sitting President invoked the 5th Amend in connection with issues surrounding the President. It is esp. stunning seeing as MC served as the "fixer" for Mr. Trump for over 10 yrs. #basta

Trump's lawyer is scheduled today to tell the court how the president, who is also named in Daniels' lawsuit, plans to respond. U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood "scheduled a noon conference to hear how lawyers are preparing to review large amounts of data for attorney-client privilege after the April 9 raids on Trump's lawyer, Michael Cohen," notes the Associated Press. The lawyer has previously said in a letter that Trump "will make himself available, as needed, to aid in our privilege review on his behalf."

FREE MINDS

Protecting online free speech from Congress. Today, Congress is slated for a showdown on "The Filtering Practices of Media Platforms." Like any foray by legislators into technology, the efforts are unlikely to lead anywhere good. But it's an important topic, as digital publications and platforms face shifting legal liabilities for their content monitoring and filtering practices in the wake of FOSTA becoming law.

"Public attention to this issue is important," suggests the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), as "calls for online platform owners to police their members' speech more heavily inevitably lead to legitimate voices being silenced online." EFF submitted a statement to the House Judiciary Committee, which will conduct today's hearing, arguing against Congress encouraging stricter online censorship.

We all want an Internet where we are free to meet, create, organize, share, associate, debate and learn. We want to make our voices heard in the way that technology now makes possible. No one likes being lied to or misled, or seeing hateful messages directed against them or flooded across our newsfeeds. We want our elections free from manipulation and for the speech of women and marginalized communities not to be silenced by harassment.

But we won't make the Internet fairer or safer by pushing platforms into ever more aggressive efforts to police online speech. When social media platforms adopt heavy-handed moderation policies, the unintended consequences can be hard to predict. For example, Twitter's policies on sexual material have resulted in posts on sexual health and condoms being taken down. YouTube's bans on violent content have resulted in journalism on the Syrian war being pulled from the site. It can be tempting to attempt to "fix" certain attitudes and behaviors online by placing increased restrictions on users' speech, but in practice, web platforms have had more success at silencing innocent people than at making online communities healthier.

FREE MARKETS

TV prices could soar under Trump's tariffs. After years of tumbling prices, we can expect to start seeing televisions get more expensive again. President Trump's proposed tariffs on all sorts of Chinese imports would include a 25 percent tax on TVs and parts used to make them. The Consumer Technology Association predicts the Chinese TV tariff would not only raise rates for Chinese-made TVs by 23 percent but cause a price hike of 4 percent on all TVs sold in America. In 2017, 35 percent of all imported flat-screen TVs and components came from China, the association says.

See, this is Fake News. This is one-sided, government-approved propaganda being spread uncritically and unquestioningly by private news sources who refuse to report both sides of the story. https://t.co/6uLq7ywiUX

Bad news for sentencing reform in Trump commission nominee. Trump has nominated William "Bill" Otis to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the non-partisan group tasked with "reduc[ing] sentencing disparities and promot[ing] transparency and proportionality in sentencing" through data collection, analysis, and dissemination. Cato researcher Jonathan Blanks thinks this is a bad idea, noting that during Otis "has continuously lambasted bipartisan efforts to reduce sentences and remains a stalwart proponent of the 'tough on crime' rhetoric of the 1980s, warning of great crime waves that will follow widespread sentencing reduction. Otis marshals no empirical evidence for his claims—because there isn't any."

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Back in the 70s I lived in Missouri for a year. They were considering passing a bill that according to opponents would “result in the state being overrun by organized gambling.” Somehow, the measure managed to pass. It was all about allowing Missouri residents to enter the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.

“The Mouthpiece” starring Warren William (of Match King fame) was released in 1932. That pre-code saga of New York’s criminal criminal lawyer class was effectively banned when one such NY lawyer sued for libel and won! Same old same old…

That’s not been Trump’s opinion on pleading the Fifth, at least not in the past. “The mob takes the Fifth,” Trump said at one 2016 campaign rally. “If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” To be fair, Trump was talking about Hillary Clinton and he had no idea that the Mob would be using their positions as bureaucrats to undermine his duly elected position.

“New York is the latest state to consider a “free range parenting” bill.”

How can there not be any link about the UK refusing to allow a family to take their child out of a hospital? This involves parental rights, socialized medicine, and free speech issues as the police are threatening arrest for people who criticize the NHS via the internet.

Ford Motor Co. is cleaving an additional $11.5 billion from spending plans and dropping several sedans, including the Fusion and Taurus, from its lineup to more quickly reach an elusive profit target.

The automaker is almost doubling a cost-cutting goal to $25.5 billion by 2022, Chief Financial Officer Bob Shanks told reporters Wednesday. By not investing in next generations of any car for North America except the Mustang, the company now anticipates it’ll reach an 8 percent profit margin by 2020, two years ahead of schedule.

Ford is trying to kick-start a turnaround that’s yet to take hold almost a year after the board ousted its chief executive officer. Getting rid of slow-selling, low-margin car models and refocusing the company around more lucrative trucks and SUVs is a crucial element of new CEO Jim Hackett’s rebound bid. By 2020, almost 90 percent of Ford’s North American portfolio will be pickups or sport utility and commercial vehicles.

A big difference is that public corps focuses on quarters or maybe a few quarters out.

A private company can vary tremendously based on who is running it. Investors still need to get paid semi-regularly, so a private company can strive for long term goals but needs some profits along the way.

The Taurus was never a big seller in its reboot, but them dropping the Fusion is telling as to the state of the sedan market. Fusions are a HUGE fleet market for Ford, and for them to drop that model is a game-changing direction in the company’s sales philosophy and for the industry. The Big 3’s truck divisions are money-printing machines because the market’s shown that people will pay $60K or more for a blinged-out cowboy Cadillac, and will spend $30-40K on lower-tier models, while the soccer mom contingent wants SUVs and CUVs, not sedans.

Don’t be surprised if Chevy follows suit (FCA is already down to the Chrysler 300 and that’s it) and other car companies start dropping sedans from their lineup in favor of higher-margin vehicles.

Joy Reid is the victim of a sophisticated right-wing smear campaign. If she said hackers planted those old comments, then I believe her. And for any problematic comments she admits to having made, if she apologizes we should accept it and move on. It’s disgraceful ? and arguably a threat to free speech ? the way right-wing outrage mobs try to ruin people’s careers by forcing them to answer for things they may have said years ago.

You’d be surprised. There’s actually a lot of gay men I’ve met, particularly younger ones who grew up in a relatively accepting environment to gays, that are taking it in stride. I know more and more people who are gay, but it’s not a particular big deal, it doesn’t entirely define who they are, and they don’t particular search for privileged like you describe.

I can’t speak for the gay men as a demographic at large, but I have seen some schism where certain gay men are trying to shame other gay men for not being overtly political about sexuality. They are fishing, hunting, starting families, working jobs that are not traditionally considered homosexual, and they are politically diverse. They’re getting to a point where they can just live their lives as they are, and I’ve seen certain gay men get upset about that. But I think it’s a losing fight.

We are slowly reaching a point where they will just integrate into the population. Which I think is the dream.

I used a lot of phrases here I’m not too fond of, but hopefully the underlying point makes sense.

They’re getting to a point where they can just live their lives as they are, and I’ve seen certain gay men get upset about that.

Good for them. But make no mistake, if it ever gets to a point where gays are no longer useful to the Progressive political movement, the Progs will turn on them in a heartbeat. Suddenly, being openly gay will be seen as Islamophobic or somehow intolerant. You watch.

I agree. And that is the thing that is happening, as it becomes more generally considered normal to be gay.

To be perfectly clear, most of them that I met were totally fine with it. My good friend is gay, and when going to graduate school became the designated conservative weirdo because he thinks people shouldn’t just hate Trump outright.

They are being set aside now, and I think that this is a group that gains can be made in. Because they are humans like you and I, and once their identity is no longer so directly tied to a party, things can become better.

“Good for them. But make no mistake, if it ever gets to a point where gays are no longer useful to the Progressive political movement, the Progs will turn on them in a heartbeat. Suddenly, being openly gay will be seen as Islamophobic or somehow intolerant. You watch.”

John, the same thing happened to rural blue collar workers. The Democratic Party considers them racist deplorables.

The left is turning on blacks who do not follow the narrative. Clarence Thomas is one example of that.

I should have said that *some* gay people get upset. As you pointed out, its almost like some militant gay people lose their identity now that being gay is really no big deal. There are no fights really left, so the soldiers have a tough time.

Honestly, gay folks seem to be more interested that my wife and I walk into a gay bar and have a drink than a gay couple walking into a non-gay bar.

From what I’ve read, unless you’re a big name like Jeremy or North, most male porn actors don’t get paid that much–something like $50-200 a scene. Not necessarily because they can “recharge” and shoot several scenes in one day, but because most people watch porn for the women, who often get paid in the thousands, especially if they’re more well-known like the ones on the subscription sites. The guys are often obscured and the focus is put on the girl, so the guys typically do “gay for pay” so they’re not living on ramen noodles and rice.

With that said, I’ve heard that even female porn stars make more money doing strip club tours and hooking on the side than shooting scenes (many also have their own websites with videos, although I’m not sure how lucrative that actually is. Probably a lot more than any of us would expect), and that they see the movies as a way to keep their brand active, rather than something they necessarily enjoy doing.

The spectacle of publications like the Ringer, Vox, and Huffpost, which are nearly or in the case of Vox I think entirely staffed by white people lecturing a black man on how he needs to stop being a tool of white supremacy is unseemly to say the least. These people really do lack any form of self-awareness.

One of the things I really hate about the media of any stripe is how they seem to think every black person is either an entertainer, politician, professional athlete or lives in the ghetto. There are black people who are more country than the guys on Duck Dynasty. Ones who are evangelicals or atheists or millionaires or have nothing and everything in between.

Ever notice how when the media talks about trade and protectionism it is always about the “white working class” as if no black person ever worked in a factory or lived in the rust belt.

I don’t really see any evidence of this. Let’s not assume that Kanye is some kind of bellwether for how black people are going to be voting within the next generation, especially if the Democrats keep trending as the “no whites allowed” party.

I don’t think he is a bellweather. I do, however, think he is basically untouchable. And once he gets away with supporting a Republican without being kicked out of the black community, and he will, it will be easier for other black people to do so in the future. And that is what scares the left.

Trump is getting credit for policies that actually help get black unemployment down to the lowest level in 50+ years.

Unlike Obama who was seen as a giver of jobs for black folks, Trump is actually creating an environment where more and more black people have jobs. People remember that they are employed when elections come around more than other issues.

Cato researcher Jonathan Blanks thinks this is a bad idea, noting that during Otis “has continuously lambasted bipartisan efforts to reduce sentences and remains a stalwart proponent of the ‘tough on crime’ rhetoric of the 1980s…

I’ve written a lot over the years about the nature of our rights, where they come from, and how we know they exist?regardless of whether the government recognizes or respects them?but nothing brings those argument into sharp focus like having them violated, which is what happened to me yesterday when some vile criminal took my child away from me.

It seems so clich?, the idea that the legitimate purpose of the police is to protect our rights from criminals. The fact that I’m glad to see the police under these circumstances doesn’t make me a hypocrite. It confirms the clich?. The cops wanted to know about all my friends and family, whom I suspect might have done such a thing, etc. Listening to their questions, there was even a hint that I might have had something to do with it myself. But they were doing their legitimate job in protecting my rights, so I didn’t mind. I just want my baby home.

Where do our rights come from? Why was taking my child away both wrong and unjust? I don’t think it’s about the hard work I put into making her the way she is today. Is it all the experiences we’ve had together? All the memories we’ve made doing things together? Is it because the government arbitrarily decided that no one should be able to take her away from me without my consent? I don’t think so.

When I say I have a natural right, I mean that I have agency and people are obligated to respect my ability to consent. This is the legitimate essence of both morality and criminal law: No one has the right to take away my baby without my consent?because I can consent. There is no morality without freedom of choice, and there is no justice without respecting our right to make choices for ourselves.

“Facebook soars at the open, on pace for best day in 2 years” […] “Facebook beat on both the top and bottom lines, quelling concerns about a diminishing user base and margin compression ? at least for now. ”https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/26/ facebook-stock-fb-set- to-soar-at-the-open.html

You know who else didn’t want poor kids to go to their ritzy public schools?

Samantha Bee’s husband

Also, pretty much every yuppie that lives in a major metro area, because “tolerance” or something. It’s cute when they pretend like they oppose vouchers because they think it will actually hurt poor kids.

Integration is absolutely like that. It’s been like that since the days of white flight.

Last I checked, millenials were proving to be less . . . um . . . principled on the issue of diversity, as well. As soon as they have kids, they abandon the diversity of downtown for lily white suburbs, just like their parents and grandparents did.

Now we’re seeing the reverse. Cities have become lilly white, wealthy, and childless. The few families that do live in cities do not want any poor people sending their kids to their schools. In contrast, suburbs have become more diverse than cities and yet their schools are still better than your average city public school.

In contrast, suburbs have become more diverse than cities and yet their schools are still better than your average city public school

To a degree. In Denver, the population has shifted to where white families dominate the south and west metro areas so their kids can go to Cherry Creek, Jefferson County, or Douglas County schools, for example, while the minority families have settled in older suburbs like north Aurora, Sheridan, Lafayette, or Westminster. And open enrollment is allowed, so a lot of minority kids who are great athletes will commute to white-majority schools to be on good teams, even though they live in the district for Aurora Central or Centaurus High School, for example, while their less-athletic siblings actually attend the neighborhood schools.

Even at that, it’s a stretch to call these schools “more diverse” than the city schools. Most of the schools in Aurora Public and Adams 50 are now 70% Hispanic or more, which is hardly diverse, and their performance metrics are as bad as Denver Public. One of the elementary schools I attended went from being about 65/25% white/Hispanic in the 80s to 10/85% today. Once a school becomes majority-minority in the Denver metro area, the quality of education goes through the floor every single time–which is why even white liberals don’t dare send their kids there.

Yeah, I’m not seeing this as anything more than a “gotcha”. The actual proposal is to endumben the schools. Who’s really the racist here when that’s interpreted by everybody as making them less white?

And BTW I went to inner-city, diverse schools. This in no way reduced the quality of education I got (in fact my HS got national attention for being so damn good) – that is why they invented “tracking”.

Wealthy White liberals don’t want their children going to school with brown kids.

This certainly isn’t unusual. White urban liberals love diversity at a distance–they want to eat in ethnic restaurants, kiss minority ass at indie bookstore events and art shows, or mingle with them at the downtown festivals, but they certainly don’t want their kids being a minority at school. Most of them send their kids to charter or private schools rather than the neighborhood public school, or they get a home in a white-majority suburb that their minority house cleaners and landscapers can’t afford to live in, because they know sending their kids to a majority-minority school is tantamount to child abuse. Little Regan might get beat up by LaTasha and Awkwafina in the girls’ restroom or rubbed on by Carlos and Shaqtavious in the hallway, and could end up with no better than a 3rd-grade reading level when the graduate to boot, because the school’s more like a holding pen for once and future prison inhabitants than an educational institution.

“[Jersey City mayor] Fulop’s order requires a sign at any bathroom maintained by the city saying, ‘Gender diversity is welcomed here; please use the restroom that best fits your gender identity or expression,’ ” NJ.com reported.

Orin Kerr should know better than to include the Koch connection in his tweet about the 4th center, would have been better to have mentioned the MacArthur connection. The Left is now going to be calling for repealing the 4th if those evil right-wing extremist Nazi racist homophobic Trump supporters like it.

Let’s start at the end so you can get a sense of his libertarian bona fides:

“The last time humans invented a grand unified theory to make our existence sustainable was when Karl Marx came up with dialectical materialism. The theory had great success in changing human behavior over large areas of our planet. But the changes did not prove to be sustainable, and the theory did not remain unified. It seems likely that West’s theory will run into similar difficulties.

The choice of an imagined future is always a matter of taste. West chooses sustainability as the goal and the Grand Unified Theory as the means to achieve it. My taste is the opposite. I see human freedom as the goal and the creativity of small human societies as the means to achieve it. Freedom is the divine spark that causes human children to rebel against grand unified theories imposed by their parents.”

His destination isn’t anywhere near as important as the journey. This piece is in response to the scientific elitists imposing their visions on us from above with their grand plans for sustainability, smart cities, etc. He’s going after the very foundation of their thinking–the reasons they’re wrong about economics, politics, and culture are the same reasons they’re wrong about the fundamentals of physics and evolution.

You know about spontaneous order arising in economics because you’re a libertarian. What do you know about spontaneous order in physics and other scientific disciplines?

We’re so accustomed to fighting scientists for applying observations from disciplines like physics to human beings, but have you ever stopped to wonder whether that’s the problem–what if the problem is that the scientists are fundamentally wrong about the science?

This is a man who embarrassed Richard Dawkins because of Dawkins’ fundamental misunderstanding of evolution. Get your head around the principles he lays out in that article, and you can destroy your elitist opponents–from a scientific perspective.

Dyson definitely attacks the notion that humans can plan for their future based on some grand theory. There is a place for disorder.

The planners certainly love them some cities. They always fail to admit that people’s desires change over time, so people grow up in rural areas, move to an urban area as soon as they can, and return to less urban areas. As Dyson points out, its not a closed system. The exchange of ideas happens in ways that TOP MEN never expect, which is another reason that humans have a tough time planning that far ahead.

During Trump’s campaign, he told his howling mob of goobers that taking the fifth is … disgraceful. So we have another flip-flop

Now he ADMITS that Cohen represented him in the Stormy Daniels case. Flip-flop number 1,138

I’m STILL waiting to see how he can keep his campaign promise to cut taxes, increase military spending AND payoff the debt in 8 years. So far, he’s INCREASED the debt by over $3 trillion.

THAT wackiness was recently copied by his kiss-ass, Rand Paul’s “penny budget” We can balance the budget in ONLY 5 years? HOW? Simply cut spending by a mere 1% per year. His goobers are REALLY stupid on math, so he went TOTALLY off the rails saying that 5 years of 1% would total …. ready? …. thirteen trillion dollars!. at 6:20

How many of his goobers think the federal gummint now spends … $52 trillion per year? (probably most) As crazy as Trump … and as Ron.

Rand has now topped (bottomed) his dad’s equally crazy idea to “Repeal the income tax, replace it with nothing, and run the entire federal government on FICA taxes!! (He never SAYS FICA, which COULD expose him as the total fraud he is.)

Everyone outside of slobbering retards like you really stopped caring about this. Trump banged a porn star 13 years before he was President and paid her off to keep quiet about it. It fucking astounds me that anyone could be dumb enough to think that matters. You do realize that by tilting at this windmill you are doing nothing except helping Trump get re-elected by making his opponents look like desperate buffoons don’t you?

During Trump’s campaign, he told his howling mob of goobers that taking the fifth is … disgraceful. So we have another flip-flop

Now he ADMITS that Cohen represented him in the Stormy Daniels case. Flip-flop number 1,138

I’m STILL waiting to see how he can keep his campaign promise to cut taxes, increase military spending AND payoff the debt in 8 years. So far, he’s INCREASED the debt by over $3 trillion.

THAT wackiness was recently copied by his kiss-ass, Rand Paul’s “penny budget” We can balance the budget in ONLY 5 years? HOW? Simply cut spending by a mere 1% per year. His goobers are REALLY stupid on math, so he went TOTALLY off the rails saying that 5 years of 1% would total …. ready? …. thirteen trillion dollars!. at 6:20

How many of his goobers think the federal gummint now spends … $52 trillion per year? (probably most) As crazy as Trump … and as Ron.

Rand has now topped (bottomed) his dad’s equally crazy idea to “Repeal the income tax, replace it with nothing, and run the entire federal government on FICA taxes!! (He never SAYS FICA, which COULD expose him as the total fraud he is.)

If Bill Clinton can harass women and bang white house interns, Donald Trump can have sex with porn stars and have them sign non disclosure agreements. You made the rules. You better learn to live with them

Even you are not dumb enough to think this is going to do any political damage to Trump. Hihn is probably the dumbest human being on planet earth. But even you are a little brighter than that. So whine all you want. But the fact remains this is going to do no damage to Trump.

My only concern is you, John, and what you mean for how brains and decency and honor can turn to mush under the thrall of partisanship. We throw out our trash. Clinton got impeached over his indiscretion. And the media and liberals and Democrats are all treating Trump’s mere sexual escapades as the unseemly but permissible faults they are. Correctly leaving them up to democracy to judge.

No all that really bothers me is how much of your own credibility to are comfortable tossing away forever to defend this man. Do you really think it’s going to turn out well for him, hookers and porn stars and piss play notwithstanding?

I imagine any one of these things happening to Obama and what your reaction would be. I think I hate hypocrisy more than anything else.

My retired father loves politics and we often discuss the nature of things. I cannot get him to openly discuss social security and medicare reform with cuts. He is just hoping to check out before our debt crushes the USA. Its selfish as shit.

Alt-Right TROLL says more crushing debt is okay .. ONLY if it lines HIS pocket! loveconstitution (sic) Insults HIS OWN FATHER, “selfish as shit” … but DEFENDS his own sucking at the gummint teat! (OMG)

HIS NON-STOP TROLLING claims that a multi-trillion debt increase (tax cut) is “giving my own money back ” …FROM WHERE TROLL?

What kind of “fiscal conservative” DENIES federal debt is stealing from our future … from his own children?

HE WOULD CUT HIS FATHER’S BENEFITS .. AND STEAL FROM HIS OWN KIDS … TO ENRICH HIMSELF, BECAUSE … HE’S “ENTITLED!.”

The NEW Entitlement Mentality. The Alt-Right, self-righteous goobers of today’s GOP.

Cry some more about how $150K in Facebook ads beat a hubristic bitch who laundered millions through her party’s national committee and spent over a billion overall in losing the greatest upset in election history.

Dumbfuck Hihnsano thinks Cambridge Analytical and the Russian government are the same thing

(lol) Ruusia has NOTHING to do with — Have you forgotten your own bullshit?. YOU fucking lied about “$150 million in Facebook ads” as the SOLE opposition to the “hubristic bitch” and who spent “over a billion” to lose … by 29,000 voters in 3 states combined.

I simply corrected your bullshit on improper opposition spending – including the million dollars per month by Russian sources.. Cambridge used FRAUD to obtain data from over 70 MILLION Facebook users — oops — to identify voters for special messages. Presumably, you IGNORANCE of Facebook FREE messaging contributed to THIS blunder